To be concise, if we start to rationalize torture then we are lost. It is the absolute opposite direction of democracy. It is the basic tool of the tyrant - the dictator. Terror is created by torture. Terror is a state of mind that prevents clear thought and impedes free actions. And destroys a person.

The Bush administration has been pushing torture since 9/11 and it seems Americans are beginning to actually feel some torture is needed at some times - if only for our survival. Maybe a little torture is OK. Maybe a little that does not spill blood but just drives the victim half insane is not really torture. Yah, like Chinese water torture is not torture.

Here are some analogies to this rationalization:

Maybe your wife needs to be hit just once so she understands limits.

Maybe a girl can get a little bit pregnant, without going all the way.

It's OK for the CIA to have a secret agent pretend to be a news reporter so as to gain access to rebels. Well - only on rare occasions.

Assassination is OK if it is not overdone.

Murdering Karen Silkwood was necessary to protect shareholders.

Pointing a gun 4 inches away at a prisoner's head is not torture.

Somehow we can slip into thinking a little torture will gain us valuable information and prevent a terrorist attack. But what we ignore is that torture also creates more terrorists. Torture tells all other peoples that we also will stoop to terrorist tactics to gain our ends. Torture of captives drives good people into a state of sympathy for the enemy.

What puzzles - and appalls - me is the lack of protest by the vast majority of Americans to Bush's program of torture. We Americans have never believed the Germans who said they didn't know Jews were being exterminated. Well, it is our turn now - and we pretend to be deaf and blind to the crimes of our government. To speak out seems too hard - too awkward. We value our comfort and our secure lives. We think a little torture will protect us and be soon forgotten.